Episode # 24 – How to Write More and Manage Your Writing Time

How to Write More and Manage Your Writing Time

In this episode of the podcast I talk to Johnny B Truant and Sean Platt, hosts of the Self Publishing Podcast and authors of the new book “Write. Publish. Repeat.” We talk about a the importance of putting the work in and managing your time properly, which will allow you to simply write more. This is going to be a fantastic episode for those who are struggling to see their writing as a business.

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Show notes:

Working Hard / Write More

If you can be discouraged then you are probably not right for self publishing. You have to go at it hard and keep going if you want to make it. There is no magic button. You have to write and then write more. After you’ve done that, write more.

You can accelerate your growth by being willing to adapt and grow.

Time Management

Johnny and Sean are very careful about how they use there time. They track everything and see their time as being a resource that can be ‘spent’ on different projects – whether that is writing, editing, promoting etc. They usually find that to simply write more is the best use of their time, everything else is secondary.

Business

See your book as inventory. Don’t be precious about it as a wonderful piece of art, see it as a product that you gave to sell. If you write more you will have more products, more products is good – you can experiment, sell more to existing readers, attract new readers interested in your other work etc.

90% of the time we would say the best promotion you can do is writing another book. If you don;’t think you have another book in you then the odds are seriously stacked against you succeeding. You need to be able to write more than just one book if you want to make it as a self publisher.

Marketing

If you have one book, you can write a free short story that leads into the main book. Put a call to action (“Hi there, buy my main book”) in the back of this short story. This free book is called a “funnel” as it takes people into the main book. Free things are a great funnel as they lead people into the free book. From there go to a 99cent book in the same series, then go to $4.99.

Find websites (like Pixel of Ink) that can promote your book for free, these will help find out about your book.

Bundle your books

Having the offer of a bundle with the rest of a series at the end of the first book (free or not) can be a great way to give the reader something (discounted books) and encourage them to buy.

Quotes:

“We want to do the 20% of activities that will get us 80% of the results” – JBT

“[Your book] is inventory … if you think of it that way you’re going to do a better job of dealing with it” – SP

“Pure artists who refuse to sully their hands with business will get trampled like Mufassa under the stampeding Gazelles” – SP

“Good marketing is just very fluid communication” – SP

“Perfect is the opposite of done” – SP

Leave a comment below or get in touch with Simon by email at simon@rockingselfpublishing.com

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Wow, I love this podcast! Very helpful insight on determining your target audience. I will be picking up the paperback version of “Write. Publish. Repeat.” Thanks so much for having these guys on, Simon!

SimonRSP

My pleasure, it was a fun interview!

http://www.marsdorian.com/ Mars Dorian

Grrreat show – I just bought the book 😉
I think their title says it all – the most successful authors I know simply write (series) with the best of their ability – if the first, free book blows a person away, they’re willing to pay for the others. The most popular book “Franchises” are all series.

Peeps just love to come back to the same story world – it’s that habitual “I know this and I like this” response.

BTW – that’s the first time I didn’t hear Johnny and Sean curse. Wow, that’s a rare one 😉

SimonRSP

Yep – I particularly liked the idea of starting someone off on a free book, moving them onto book two at 99cents, then making the rest of the series $2.99 (or higher). Nice addition to the perma-free strategy!

>>that’s the first time I didn’t hear Johnny and Sean curse.

Haha – and I didn’t even have to edit anything out! I try to keep the show “car with kids” friendly.